NLM: interesting video of Mass in vernacular

This bears watching as it illustrates the possibilities within the vernacular for Catholic Mass. This video was taken at the first Mass at the Sacred Music Colloquium at CUA last year. The video is long but it covers the full introductory rites, including the sung Confiteor.

24 Responses to NLM: interesting video of Mass in vernacular

Yes, it was wonderful. I was there. The celebrant was Rev. Robert A. Skeris who also celebrated the TLM later in the week. We also did the Novus Ordo in Latin and the NO Latin Requiem Mass. I recommend the Colloquium to anyone who is interested in singing the liturgy. The meeting this year is in Chicago from June 15-22 and it will truly be 7 days of heaven. Here is the link http://www.musicasacra.com/ and there are more audio files from last year under the Audio link. You will learn beginning chant or intermediate/advanced chant, polyphonic singing and more. There will be Mass each day and you will practice the propers for it, you will sing it and it will be an amazing experience.

How incongruous that was. That horrid ‘And also with you’ and then the reference at the end to God as a ‘You’, and that nauseating I.C.E.L. mistransation of the Confiteor (the priest nevertheless struck his breast thrice for the single ‘through my own fault’: he was following the Latin text of the new Confiteor). The entire thing wasn’t all that bad, but that’s because we didn’t even get as far as the Gloria.

Certainly, you can dress up the New Mass to make it look less Protestant. But it remains clearly inferior. Worse still, what about the *other* options which are possible? How easy will it be even for a Pope to command all those fools to put away their banjos? As long as they use the vernacular and know the ‘songs’, it won’t be easy to do that.

Thank God for the old Mass and its restoration in Latin. If I had a choice between the butchered I.C.E.L. translation of the New Mass and the Byzantine Divine Liturgy, I’d take the latter any day.

There are numerous examples where the rhythm, notes, and expression, are tailored down to each syllable of the words of the Latin sacred text. Another problem with putting English to Latin text is the heavy use of consonants in the English language. Think of the word “Christ” in English: At least four partials (consonants) to one vowel sound. Add to this the fact that the reality that English is full of one syllable diphthongs, for example, “Ate” is actual (E-y)-t this can make syllable hard to pronounce cleanly in a choir. When a diphthong comes up in Gregorian chant the music is ‘aware’ that a Latin diphthong is present and the notation and music reflect this. Further English is complicated by the reducing many other vowels to the “uh” sound, the upside-down-e, making musics which promotes the vowels very hard to understand. Finally, squish multiple syllables together and you get a hop-scotch game rather than the rhythm of chant music, when you try and wed English to Latin chant rhythm.
The monks have worked on Gregorian chant for twelve hundred years. How can anyone be so presumptuous as to think that they can call something chant that they cooked up themselves?
Gregorian chant set to English is just something else. It should not take the place of Gregorian chant. If it does it is a rude usurper that no one will ever really care about. It will only destroy chant before it itself fades away because of disuse. Monks do not flock to monasteries that do this stuff. People sing this stuff because they want to sing the music, but because they have to stuff something in.
I challenge people to really try and understand the Latin words of Gregorian chant and see how the music so aptly fits the words. You might start with the beautiful and easy case in the offertory of Ascension Sunday-Thursday; in the word Ascendit the notes Ascend! The chant is full of this kind of stuff.

P.K.T.P.: I would dare to doubt that. I am too young to remember, but my father (who loves the extraordinary form) experienced more than one low mass lasting not much longer than 15 minutes a.s.o. Perhaps the abuses were different, but they were not unknown of.

It seemed like they were taking some liberties with the rubrics: seated for the Kyrie, inserting “Dominus vobiscum” before the collect, etc. That doesn’t seem legitimate in the Novus Ordo. If there is someone out there who can give me solid evidence that it is legitimate (by that I mean, not just their own opinion), I would greatly appreciate it.

I am not a musician, though I have had something of an education in classical music…so I cannot give a scientific or even sound aesthetic reason for this opinion…but there is something vaguely jarring to me and not quite right about chanting such elements of the Novus Ordo Missae introductory rites as the Signum Crucis, the greeting, the penitential rite (minus the Kyrie, of course).

But overall I agree with Father wholeheartedly…English in Gregorian Chant just doesn’t quite work.

And yet how often does one hear banjos in the Traditional Latin Mass? It is extraordinary indeed, extraordinary in grace and in beauty. The Latin seems to keep out the abuses.
Comment by Peter Karl T. Perkins

I love the Banjo, but its proper use is on Riverboats and Bluegrass Music.

I tried to post an comment a few days ago. Didn´t it work or did You, Rev. F., eleminate/delete it?

Well, I was arguing that the vernacular is in dead not that bad, the bigger problems of liturgical reform are the rubrical and textual ones – some of them, so I argued, clearly support heresy – and I was giving some examples.

The venarcular does not, at least not in the same clear or evident way, support heresy and therefor it is discussable and not that clearly/obviously bad.

Well, F., please permit that I post here a comment that I wanted to post 26. of march in direct answer to JBrown – but the comment-box was closed and I worry that he was/is waiting and longing for answer. I want to be polite and answer him.

So, if F.Z. kindly allows to post the answer here, I will do it now. It is connected to the thread here and not off topic; it deals with the question of latin and NOM and also my argument, that some changes in the NO clearly support heresy, even if prayed in Latin, for example the NO-Good-Fr.-prayer for the Jews. Notice: I speake about the NO prayer…!

So here my answer to JBrown, originally belonging to the thread “Vatican to issue conciliatory note by Card. Bertone to Jews”, 18. March, in answer to JBrown´s comment 26. March – the very last comment in the comm-box, that was closed then.[So, please, see there the exact discussion point, – related to the point in this thread!]

Laudetur JS CHS!
Hello JBrown!

Yes, I´m from Germany [as I mentioned also above].

And yes, I know Jens Mersch. So nice to meet You here in this blog. I studied in Bonn and therefor I also know Dr. Barth [the German philologist who received the interesting letter from Card. Ratzinger in 2003 or 2002 (?) that circulted in the internet again the last days] and the SSPX there.

And You, do You live in the US? And are You indentic with Jrbrown/Jrbown above or not?

To discussion: To prayer for the Jews: Sorry, but You got me wrong on this issue. My discussion with Melody was only about comparison between NO [novus ordo] and VO [vetus ordo] and I mentioned only the NO-prayer, so the prayer of 1969/70, NOT the revised prayer for the VE. But You cited this revised prayer. But, again: I did not refer to this, but only to the NO-prayer [see above], that is totaly different.

[Well, to the revised prayer of VO: it is not that bad, but is has, regrettably, a bad element, the eschatological turning. As You are able to read German cf. H.Em. Card. Kaspers recently comment in the FAZ on Thursday of last supper. There he states again the exclusivly eschatologic character of the prayer! But, as I said, that is an other theme/thread, I was refering to NO-prayer, not to the revised VO-prayer!!]

And I also did not state what You imputed to me as Your 2. # point – the refusal
of fullfillnes of the old covenant by the new and the old not beeing revoked. Where did you read that in my statements? I never touched this thing. I don´t handle with the complicate matter of the old beeing revoked or not. Not revoked, ok. – I only refuse the teaching of a valid old covenant outside the new one!!
But this heresy is clearly supported by the NO-prayer [again: I am speaking about the NO-prayer, remember!].
If you see the context you can only come to the conclusion that this prayer at least [stressing “at least”!] supports heresy. – So I am not going to revoke anything here: if you refuse to say so you can not read or do not know the context or are not honest – or you [have a] lack of faith. I don´t see any other possibility.
[To this question cf. also the excellent interview of Jens Mersch with Dr. Barth in the “Kirchlische Umschau” of March (or Feb.)!]

And that was my point in the “Latin-question”:
I do not say latin is not important but I refuse or better: have to modify Your statement, that “most of those changes are minor compared to the consequences of the change from Latin to the vernacular and ad orientem to versus populum.”
Yes, there are some changes minor ..to..Latin. But there are some others, compared to them the venarcular is the minor problem.
Compared to changes that support clearly/obviously and in a very direct way heresy [as for example the mentioned NO-prayer] Latin is only secondary or accidential. I do not see that the venacular clearly – without doubt – supports any heresy, at least not in a direct way (yes, perhaps indirect, ok., but not that obvious) – but I can show You more textual changes that do so.

And “versus populum”: yes, that also seems to me to protect/support some heresy in a more direct way. But this belongs to the ceremony/rubricistical changes, that were also mentioned by me.

So yes, that is my point: textual changes, that support heresy in a very direct and obvious way (like mentioned prayer, but there are other examples) or ceremony changings that do the same (- like celebrating versus populum -) are much worse (or at least: more obviously worse) than using venacular, what is not in that direct and obvious way supporting a heresy.

So that was my point also to Rev. F. Z.: latin is important – but compared with some changes that support obviously and very directly some heresy it is secondary – and does not help that the chanings, that support heresy, still support heresy.
And as I said “to be continued” I cangive you more examples of changes that support clearly a heresy – such clear examples, that if you take the context, the circumstances there is no doubt reminding. But I have to have time for this (- I can´t spend all my time on this blog…!)

So best greetings from Germany
– interesting and nice to meet a friend of a friend –
in CHo per Mam
D.S.

Can someone please comment on the legitimacy of things such as sitting during
the Kyrie, and especially incensing the celebrant after the incensation of
the altar(at the beginning, because of course it is done at the offertory)?

1. If you look at the post to which you are responding, you will see that I am RBrown, not JBrown.

It’s hard to miss the irony that someone who makes such an obvious mistake would later accuse me of not being able to read.

2. And I also did not state what You imputed to me as Your 2. # point – the refusal
of fullfillnes of the old covenant by the new and the old not beeing revoked. Where did you read that in my statements? I never touched this thing. I don´t handle with the complicate matter of the old beeing revoked or not. Not revoked, ok. – I only refuse the teaching of a valid old covenant outside the new one!!
But this heresy is clearly supported by the NO-prayer [again: I am speaking about the NO-prayer, remember!].

But your previous comments about the Old Covenant “support” its revocation in the same manner that you say that a certain prayer “supports heresy”.

You seem not to be able to follow your own rules.

3. I think you are confusing Heresy with Heretic. No statement that is ambiguous is heretical, but the author might be a heretic. For example, the phrase “potus spiritalis” from the NO Offertory certainly does not exclude the Protestant unbelief in Transubstantiation. But there’s nothing in the phrase itself that directly contradicts Catholic doctrine.

Similarly, the phrase “Bread of Life” is used to indicate the Catholic understanding of the Eucharist. But it also has been used by Protestants to contradict Transubstantiation. According to your approach the Author of the Fourth Gospel is “supporting heresy” by the phrase Bread of Life.

4. You are confusing “support heresy” with “does not exclude heresy”. I would agree that various new prayers qualify as the latter, but that does mean they can be considered as the former.

As I stated I wanted to response earlier, but the com-box had been closed.

And that was especially annoying because when I wrote this answer the com-box seemed to be open, so I spent a long time in writing the text and then, when I pressed the “submit-comment-button” it did not work and I had to recognice that the com-box had been closed (but seemed still to be open).

[So perhaps a system-fault, F. Z.?]

Therefor I saved/copied the letter and was longing for a thread where it would not be off-topic.

And in dead I was confused by the “Js” and “Rs”, because there were (at least) 3 different names, “RBRown”, “JrBown” and “JrBrown” (so I was not sure if You would perhaps have a double-prename, so J-R) – and it was late in the evening as I wrote Your answer so I confused it totaly to “JBrown” . And copied the fault was carried on till now.

But I do not think that You are realy interested in hearing such excusations, so just sorry and thanks for correction.

Because I do neither want to be nausty myselfe nor be treated this way I think it is better to cut short our “discussion” (so I do so now).

[In my last comment it must be “nasty” instead of “nausty” – sorry for my English!]

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